McLaren civil war erupts: Oscar Piastri vs Lando Norris in Singapore F1 clash

After faithfully playing his part in following McLaren’s ‘papaya’ team orders – which allow their drivers to race each other on the condition they don’t hit each other – Piastri was left fuming when Norris almost put him into the wall on the opening lap of Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.

The Australian managed to avert disaster by finishing the race in fourth place to retain his healthy lead in the championship standings while helping McLaren retain the constructors’ champions with six races to go.

But his advantage in the individual title was trimmed by three points to 22 when Norris finished just ahead of him in third place, despite Piastri complaining over the team radio that his English teammate should have handed back the position after ‘barging’ into him.

“That wasn’t very team-like, but sure. So, are we cool with Lando barging me out of the way or what’s the go there?” Piastri asked.

When told by his engineers that McLaren’s team leaders were siding with Norris, Piastri blew up, saying: “That’s not fair. I am sorry, that’s not fair. If he has to avoid another crash by crashing into his teammate, then that’s a **** poor job of avoiding.”

Piastri was entitled to cry foul because Norris made contact with him, even though there were some mitigating circumstances.

“It was slippery, still wet in a lot of places, but it’s racing, I put it on the inside. I hit Max, so it wasn’t aggressive on my teammate,” Norris said after the race.

“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing I did. If you fault me for going up the inside and putting my car inside a big gap, then I think you shouldn’t be in Formula 1. I don’t think I did anything wrong — of course I misjudged a little bit how close I was to Max, but that’s racing.”

As well as swiping the Australian, Norris also ran into the back of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and was lucky to avoid an official reprimand after being investigated by the race stewards.

Verstappen eventually finished second behind George Russell, who won the race for Mercedes after starting from pole position.

Asked about the incident with his teammate on the Marina Bay street circuit, a defiant Norris insisted he acted fairly.

“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as I did,” Norris said.

“I don’t think there was anything wrong that I did. Of course, I misjudged a little bit how close I was to Max, but that’s racing.

“Nothing happened otherwise, and I’m sure I still would have ended up ahead of Oscar anyway because I was on the inside and he would have had the dirty side of the track on the outside.

“I need to go review it, of course. I need to look at things and see if there was something I could have done better. The last thing I want is to make contact with my teammate.”

Renowned for keeping his cool under intense pressure, Piastri was still unhappy after the race.

He did not immediately join the rest of the McLaren on the podium to celebrate the constructors’ title though he did show up shortly after for a team photo in the pit lane after telling reporters he didn’t want to say anything more about the incident because he didn’t want to detract from the team’s success.

“It’s obviously a great night for the whole team. Obviously not the race I was looking for, but for the whole team, tonight is the culmination of a lot of hard work from not just this year, but lots of years,” he said.

“It’s a really proud moment for me to be a part of that and a proud moment for the whole team.

“I don’t think there was any intention of contact, but I’ve not seen the incident from the TV camera. I need to look at that first before I say anything.

“I think just take the learnings from this weekend and see what can be improved.

“I think the weekend as a whole was genuinely very good. Practice went well, qualifying went well, the race maybe a little bit slow to get going, but I feel like the pace for the rest of the race was pretty good. Obviously, around here it’s pretty much impossible to overtake, so that was all.”

The big unknown going forward is whether the two drivers will race each other any differently in the remaining races after the fuse has been lit for an explosive final quarter of the 24-race calendar.

McLaren confirmed they would review the incident but chief executive Zac Brown said it was “just hard racing” while team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri’s unhappiness wouldn’t change the team’s ‘papaya’ rules for the rest of 2025, starting with the next race at the US Grand Prix in Texas.

“We have to put everything into perspective. It’s comments from a driver in an F1 car, there’s the heat of the moment,“ Stella said.

“The information that is available is just his point of view and this is Lando moving on to him.

“I think as usual we have good conversations, we will build from there and come back stronger.”

While he was livid at the way things played out against him, the silver lining for Piastri is that result didn’t do any major damage to his bid to become the first Australian in 45 years to win the world drivers’ championship.

With a maximum of 174 points up for grabs, Piastri leads Norris by 22 points, with Verstappen third, 63 in arrears of the Australian, and already resigned to not winning a fifth crown.

“For that you need to win. You need to dominate. We’re not doing that, or at least we’re not doing that this weekend,” Verstappen said.

“So, we’re not catching up enough. For that you had to win today, and we didn’t. That’s how it is. We already lost way too many points in the beginning of the season.”